Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to dense plasma heating and more particularly to plasma heating by way of a relativistic electron beam.
Plasma heating has, for some time, been of great interest to the scientific community, since heated plasmas can be utilized for a wide variety of functions. A typical use of a hot plasma is the generation of energy in the form of a radiation, neutrons, and alpha particles. Such an energy source can be useful in basic high energy density plasma physics research, with practical application in scientific areas such as controlled thermonuclear fusion, materials studies, and radiography.